Raiders Defense Dominated Again in 38-17 Loss to Saints

Oakland’s defense was again shredded Sunday, this time by Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints, as the Raiders fell at home 38-17.

The mood of the team was brought down a little more after the game, as owner Mark Davis spoke to reporters, and stated his unhappiness with his team.

“I’m not happy, I’ll put it that way,” Davis said in the locker room afterward. “And why should I be?”

While the defense didn’t stop Brees and the Saints, the offense didn’t do much to inspire either, as Carson Palmer threw one interception that was returned for a score and another in the end zone.

Through 10 games this season, the first-year Raiders (3-7) regime of general manager Reggie McKenzie and coach Dennis Allen appear to have one monstrous mess to clean up.

The Raiders lost their third straight game under Allen as Brees picked apart the defense with his precision passing.

Oakland has given 135 points in three straight defeats — the most in a three-game span for the franchise since allowing 141 in the first three games in 1961.

In the latest showing, Brees threw three touchdown passes and Malcolm Jenkins returned an interception for another score to get the Saints (5-5) back to an even record.

Lance Moore caught two touchdown passes and Mark Ingram ran for a score as the Saints won for the fifth time in six games to move into position to make a late-season playoff run despite the season-long distraction from the bounty scandal.

“We’re on our way,” Brees said. “Had you told us or anybody after 0-4 we’d be looking at 5-5 at some point, I think a lot of people might have looked at that and said that’s pretty unrealistic. But here we are. We stayed the course.”

In other words, the kind of turnaround frustrated Raiders fans are hoping to make.

“I think when you look at it,” Allen said, “it’s really the whole thing you’ve got to get better at.”

The Raiders left receivers open all day and struggled to tackle in another thorough beat down. They have been outscored by 56 points the past two games.

“Very frustrated. Very painful loss,” Palmer said. “We knew we had a team and a team that was on a roll and a team that’s a Super Bowl contender coming into our place in front of our fans.

“We had a great crowd there today, they were into it and we let ourselves down and we let them down by not playing up to our potential and by getting beat the way we did.”